Visions A La Tresemmé
by Mac-alicious
Summary: FlashFic for juliafish. Derek sees Casey on his girlfriend's shampoo bottle...what could that possibly mean?


Vision A La Tresemmé

**A/N: **This is my Flash Fic entry for Grace (juliafish). The prompt was:

_Derek sees Casey's face on his girlfriend's shampoo bottle. He thinks it's a sign._

I have to admit this is my very worst entry for this thing. I started out liking the concept I was using, but this is just terrible. I'm not being all whiney or whatever. I was really in a weird kind of slump when I wrote this so it's not my best writing. I hope you still enjoy it. I wanted to get you something out. So R&R! Thanks! –Mac

**Disclaimer: **I don't own LWD.

**Visions A La Tresemmé**

"I'm going to ask her to marry me."

"What?" Sam sputtered. "Who?"

Derek rolled his eyes, "Aline, my girlfriend, remember?"

Sam composed himself, "But Derek isn't that like a big step?"

Derek had invited Sam over to watch the hockey game at his apartment. Sam had expected a boys day in, spent chowing down on junk food and yelling heatedly at the TV. He had not expected Derek to spring this big announcement on him. In fact, he never expected to be in this situation, seeing as this was Derek Venturi—no one could match his fear of commitment.

"That's kind of the point, isn't it?" Derek sent Sam a sort of half smile. "It's just…we've been together for a fair amount of time and Aline has been hinting about it for awhile now. So, I figure, maybe it's time."

Sam swallowed, "Have you thought this through, I mean _really_ thought this through?"

"I guess so." Derek frowned, "Do you have a problem?"

"It's just…it's _you_, Derek!" Sam exclaimed, "How do you expect me to react?"

"Uh, 'Congratulations, Derek. I'm happy for you Derek' comes to mind." Derek snapped.

"Are you sure Aline is the one?"

"She's the one I'm with, so yes." Derek said slowly, as if drawing it out for a being of less than average intelligence. Then he scowled, "What's with the third degree, man? I thought you would be happy for me."

"I am happy for you Derek." Sam began.

Derek scoffed, "You're certainly not acting like you are."

"Look, there is only one time in your life that I ever saw you in a position where I thought you wouldn't mind settling down, in fact you would have wanted nothing more than to do so. But that time passes, and I don't think—" Sam was cut off.

"I don't want to get into this Sam." Derek shook his head. "Really don't want to get into this."

"I don't think," Sam continued without acknowledging that Derek had spoken, "that you're over Casey."

"Damn it Sam." Derek cursed. "Haven't we been through this enough times?"

"No, we haven't. Not if you haven't resolved the problem." Sam shook his head.

"I am proposing to my girlfriend!" Derek exclaimed. "I think I've resolved the problem."

"Do you love her?" Sam asked simply.

"Casey? No, not any more. I've completely moved on. It's been over a year, why should I still love her? It was my choice anyway. I don't, really, I'm over her."

"I meant Aline." Sam said, "But if you have to spend that much breath explaining why you don't love Casey, maybe there's more to that."

Derek forced himself to calm down, "Why'd you have to bring this up?'

"I'm just looking out for you." Sam shrugged. "I want you to be happy, man."

"I am happy." Derek said firmly.

Sam was still not convinced, "You say that, but I'm not sure you believe it. I just want you to really think this through before you act rashly. You're known for that, you know."

"Okay, I'll think about it." Derek nodded, "You're always looking out for my best interests. If you think it's the wrong time, then I trust that."

"Good, I don't want you to make a mistake when it comes to something this big." Sam breathed a sigh of relief.

Derek smiled. "I know"

-+-+-+-

Casey and Derek had started dating in their senior year of high school. It had happened the way anyone would have imagined it would. A spirited fight gave way to an accidental admission of feelings and from there escalated to the grand romance it was. It continued into the first couple years of college and it looked like they were going to make it in the long run. For the first time in his life—the only time in his life—Derek had found someone he could actually commit to. Back then, if Derek had broken the news to Sam that he was going to propose to his girlfriend, Sam wouldn't have been so skeptical. In fact, he would have probably cracked some joke about it being "about time." Everything was going perfectly for the two.

But then an opportunity arose for Casey to finish her degree at a prestigious school in the States. Suddenly she was heading in a direction Derek couldn't follow. Casey tried for weeks to figure something out for them, tried hard. But in the end, Derek made the final decision for them. Rather than try to make a long distance relationship seem as if it was what they wanted, it would be easier for them to break off then. Give each other a chance to move on. And if somehow they ever found their way back to each other in the future, they would see how it went then.

All the people around them would have loved to say it was mutual and they both moved on rather quickly, but they couldn't lie that well. Both Derek and Casey were heart broken—to the point that no one quite understood why they were putting themselves through such torment. They stuck to it though. Casey went to the States, and Derek stayed behind. They talked sometimes and saw each other once or twice for holidays.

It took Derek over two years to get back on the horse. The first date he went on after Casey was with Aline. They had been together ever since. The thing that Sam feared most was that Derek had displaced the feelings he had left over for Casey onto Aline. If that was the case, marrying her would be the biggest mistake of his life.

-+-+-+-

The day after he had Sam over, Derek took Aline out to dinner and a movie. Throughout the evening, Derek made a pointed effort to not think about the conversation he had with Sam the previous day. Every time Sam had mentioned Casey since the time Derek and she had broken up, it opened up a can of worms Derek didn't want to deal with this time around. He was happy with Aline, he wasn't going to let a past relationship ruin that. Both dinner and the movie went smoothly and afterwards they retired to her apartment.

The next morning, Derek slipped out of her bed to grab a quick shower before Aline woke up as well. He turned on the water and let it heat up while he stripped down. Once the stream was hot enough, he stepped into the shower. He let the water fall on him for a few minutes before he grabbed a bottle of Aline's shampoo. What he saw on it startled him so, that he dropped it.

Derek forced himself to take a deep breath and calm down. He told himself it was impossible for him to have seen what he thought he had seen. Finally, he retrieved the bottle off the floor of the shower. He turned it over to see a brunette model smiling up at him. Other than the hair color, the woman bore no resemblance to the person he thought he had seen.

Derek breathed a sigh of relief, and then muttered to himself, "That was just crazy. What was I thinking? It couldn't have been Casey. I'm imagining things."

He shook his head, and cleared it of those thoughts, before continuing with his shower. He passed it off as being still hazy from being asleep not long before and aftereffects from his talk with Sam. It had to be that, because if it wasn't that, what else could it be?

-+-+-+-

The incident with the shampoo was all but forgotten by that afternoon. Derek had stopped in at a grocery store on his way home from Aline's. He needed to stock up his cabinets, and the sooner he did so the better. He grabbed a cart from the front and began his trek through the store. He gathered products as he went—chips, dips, sodas, waters, fruit, vegetables, and you-name-it. Derek was about to grab a box of cereal when something stopped him in his tracks.

Derek closed his eyes tightly, waited a moment and then looked at the box of cereal again. Where a moment before he could have sworn he had seen Casey, now there was only a dark haired woman holding a bowl of the sugary cereal. He could have passed the shampoo thing off as a fluke, but twice in one day? Could that really be considered a coincidence?

Derek shook his head and quickly put a box of the cereal in his basket. He continued down the aisle trying to rid himself of the image. There had to be an explanation for what was going on, he just couldn't put his finger on it just yet. Yes, that was it.

While picking up some products from the canned foods aisle, Derek caught another glimpse of his ex. This time it was on the tee shirt of a little girl that had passed by with her mother. After blinking rapidly a few times, the image re-morphed back into the teeny bopper singer, which was popular with the tweens, concert tee shirt. Now Derek was beginning to think he was going just a little crazy. He high tailed it to the register and out of the store.

Derek was particularly unnerved by these visions. At the end of the day, he blamed Sam completely for ever bringing Casey up. Derek had been getting along fine with his minimal exposure to Casey, and then Sam had to bring her up and all these whacked out things keep happening to him. It was not good for a person's sanity to see images of an ex girlfriend on everyday objects.

-+-+-+-

After his conversation with Derek, Sam hadn't known what to do. He knew he could stall Derek for a short amount of time before he made the ultimate decision to do the stupid thing he had been warned against, but that wasn't going to be enough this time. He was going to have to something more. He just didn't know what. Then as a last resort, he made a single call.

"Hello?" The woman's voice answered.

"Casey?" Sam asked.

Casey frowned, "Sam? Is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"Wow, I haven't heard from you in a long time. What's going on with you Sam?" Casey asked.

Sam responded, "Not much with me. I kinda have a problem I wanted your help with."

"Oh no. Oh God. What did Derek do this time?" Casey immediately spilled out frantically.

"How do you know it's about Derek?"

"It's always about Derek." Casey answered, "So what's happened now?"

Sam hesitated, "He wants to propose to his girlfriend."

"Oh." Casey trailed off.

"That's all you have to say about that?" Sam questioned, "That can't possibly be all you have to say. You're Casey. You're opinionated and speak your mind. You have to have some kind of comment about that."

"Why did you call me Sam?" Casey questioned quietly after a long moment of silence. "What is it that you want me to say? Derek's love life hasn't been business for years."

"I called you because…Casey, he's making a big mistake." Sam shook his head.

Casey scoffed, "What do expect me to do about it?'

"Well, it's all about you Casey. You know it is. He's never gotten over you. I think it would be wrong from him to propose to another girl when he's still in love with you."

"Sam, please. Derek and I were over a long time ago. If he's thinking of proposing to another girl, then I'm sure he's thought it through. Now I've really got to go…" Casey said. "Goodbye Sam."

"Casey, wait!" Sam called into the phone.

There was a pause, "What, Sam?"

"He still loves you. He won't admit it, but I'm his best friend and I know he does. He was a mess without you, and even now he hasn't put himself back together all the way." Sam explained, "You are the only girl I could ever imagine marrying Derek. He won't listen to me anymore. If he makes this decision, I won't be able to do anything about it. If you have any feelings left over for him, you can't possibly just sit back and let him do this."

"You seem to forget that he's the one that broke it off. I tried so hard to work things out with him. He's the one that gave up, not me. If he's hurting, that's his problem. Now I'm thousands of miles away and there's nothing I can do about." Casey took a deep breath, "There's nothing I can do."

"Do you still love him?" Sam asked.

"What does it matter Sam?" Casey sighed.

"It matters."

Casey whispered, "Yes, of course I do. But what good is that? I'm here. He's there. And it sounds like he's perfectly cozy in his new life."

"He's not, I promise you, he's not." Sam responded. "Maybe you should tell him that. It might save him from the biggest mistake of his life."

"I can't." Casey refused, "It was nice talking to you Sam. I've got to go."

-+-+-+-

Derek finally recovered from his day of psychological hallucinations, and tried to get back to sanity. He had not been deterred in the slightest from his decision to propose to Aline—not by Sam nor the images of Casey that Derek now maintained were figments of his imagination. It was for that reason that he had pulled out the small jewelry catalog. If he was going to propose, he was going to have to find a suitable ring.

After a few turns of the pages, Derek came upon the perfect ring. The ring was being modeled on the center of the page. He glanced up to look at the model wearing the ring and nearly slammed the catalog shut at the sight. He blinked a couple times and then looked again—the image didn't go away. He closed his eyes once more and looked again, but still the image persisted. On the page, Casey was modeling the perfect engagement ring.

Derek was past coincidence and hallucinations…this was a sign. He closed the catalog, and took a deep breath. Then he picked up his phone and dialed a familiar number.

"Sam? I have a problem."

-+-+-+-

Derek wasn't sure how he ended up where he was. A couple of days prior, he had been ready to take the next step with Aline. Now, he was single (having called Aline after a in depth conversation with Sam), thousands of miles away from his home, in an unfamiliar place, standing at a door unsure if the person behind it was going to answer. While he was out of his element, he knew this was the right place to be. How had he gotten there? That was a mystery. Was he meant to be here? A definite yes.

Derek took a deep breath and raised a hand to knock. He shook out his arms as he tried to calm his nerves, and waited for the door to open. When it finally did, Derek felt as if an entire weight had been lifted off his shoulder that had been there for years.

"Derek?" Casey's eyes went wide, "What are you doing here?"

Derek smiled, "Hey Case."

"What are you doing here?" Casey repeated quietly.

"I've been seeing you everywhere. I haven't been able to escape you the last few days. And I realized it was a sign…it was a sign that I was making a mistake, that I _made_ a mistake. I never should have let you go…" Derek explained, "And at Sam's urging, here I am. Correcting my mistake."

"Derek, it's been years. _Years_." Casey shook her head. "Why now?"

"I don't know why now. I just know I can't pretend anymore." Derek shrugged. "I love you Casey. I always have."

"Derek…" Casey smiled.

"I know I might be too late, but I wanted you to know that."

Casey stepped closer to him, "You're not too late. You couldn't be…I love you too. I tried so hard to make you change your mind. I never should have left…"

Derek closed the distance between them, "A wise man once told me that there was only one time in my life that I was ever in a position in which I would settle down and that was with you…"

"You've been talking to Sam." Casey laughed.

Derek nodded, "How would you know?"

"I've been talking to him too." Casey responded, "Apparently I'm the only girl he could ever imagine you marrying."

"Well, he's right. Which is why…" Derek began, "the time comes for me to really be ready to propose, it's going to be to you."

"I'll keep that in mind." Casey smiled. "Now get over here and kiss me, because I've missed you so much."

"Yes, ma'am." Derek could only obey.


End file.
